Friday, 23 February 2018

When you get to know about "WhatsApp Payment" the first thing will come to your mind is "What will "Paytm" do now ?" and the reason is - before E-Wallets for youths was a fun to transact and earn a cash back from it and now it is one of the essential mode of clearing the dues. No doubt after demonetization Paytm was the front runner to motivate youths to use their platform to pay rather then standing in the long queues of Bank or ATM. Other E-Wallets despite of open battleground remain dry as they didn't wants to risk themselves for the opportunity, one of the competitor of Paytm was even promoting their brand during demonetization by organizing a essay writing competition to gift their PR agents the trophy. Recently one of the small but emerging player in Wallets shut its door and all you got now is Paytm. Currently Paytm is going strong for a reason and that is their reach among small merchant to big corporate but their push for Paytm Bank may cost their dominance soon.

Image of WhatsApp Inc.

Ever since Airtel, Paytm, Kotak etc. got the license of payment banking their business focus has been shifted to their new venture, Paytm has merged their wallet business to the Bank it means soon it will no longer remain in the shape of standalone feature. Currently RBI has extended the KYC deadline of Mobile Wallets but soon Paytm will look to reboot their idol venture. WhatsApp's inclusion on Payment business are the first threat for Paytm since WhatsApp is the most used app among Indians and far more on regular basis then Paytm. WhatsApp's simplicity and its popularity are the key of the launch of their new feature compare to other apps who already got a scratchy start. Recently Google's launch of Tez was impressive but not so due to people's fear on experimenting much. Google was offering Rs. 40 for the 1st ever transaction on Tez and like its name it proven to be a lightning fast app on money transfer.

Google may be is impressive with Tez but they needs to remain ready to answer on "Why Tez ?". Google and Flipkart is one of the dominating internet giant in India similarly Tez, Flipkart got Phonepe which they acquired way back on 2016, unfortunately even after the acquisition Phonepe yet to make out on many's phone. All the new entrant in digital payment are UPI it means in terms of feature they are very similar to each other compare to the cosmetic changes which differentiate the application with each other, application which is simple and already popular will always have the extra edge. The reason Bhim is far behind then others due to their negligence on supporting bus, movie or train ticketing services etc. Flipkart never pushed Phonepe aggressively not even via Myntra or even via Jabong. Paytm continue to be a front runner on expanding the offers all the time. It will be very interesting that how Google will react on WhatsApp Payment.

One nice step taken by Facebook is to utilize the WhatsApp for Payment rather then their social networking site. WhatsApp is quite unique and offers more professionalism in nature which let their success story continue, surely post their trial run of Payment will either shake the industry or let NPCI regulates their service which owns UPI. New competition are already arisen despite digital Payment in its nascent stage. Good thing that internet giants are taking Indian market more seriously and exploring the new opportunity. More competition means more benefits for consumers in terms of offers and service and anyone will please to know about it. Currently WhatsApp Payment is working under invitational mode which is soon to be roll out for everyone, lets find out how to enable to feature and how to access it in the video below:

How to enable WhatsApp Payment ?

Author of this post is+Anirudha Das, he writes in Tech, Sports, Social, Politics, Business. Follow him on social media at@anirudhasdas